Preventing Morning Sickness

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Morning sickness is a very common condition for women who become pregnant. So if you have a little one on the way, here are some home-based ways you can ease morning sickness.

Before that little bundle of joy arrives, 50 percent of pregnant women will experience morning sickness in their first trimester. So what can be done? First …

“… Making sure to have enough fluids,” said Marlena Fejzo, PhD at University of California Los Angeles.

Being dehydrated can make you feel more nauseous. If you feel like your body will have a hard time holding down fluids, try eating salty snacks like saltine crackers or potato chips that can settle your stomach and make you thirsty.

Also a study out of Italy found that 60 percent of pregnant women who apply pressure with either their fingers or a wristband to the acupressure point where the wrist pulse is were able to reduce nausea and vomiting. Another tip: carry a bottle of lemon extract in your bag. A recent study out of Iran found that the scent of lemon can be effective in reducing nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. However, women should be wary if they are experiencing extreme morning sickness.

Fejzo told Ivanhoe, “If women have lost a lot of weight, are continuously vomiting, over five percent of their pregnancy weight, they need to go and get treatment.”

To make sure that mom and baby are doing just fine.

A recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that women who experienced morning sickness were 50 to 75 percent less likely to suffer a miscarriage.

BACKGROUND: About 75 percent of all pregnant women experience morning sickness during the beginning of their pregnancy. Unfortunately, some women even experience morning sickness throughout the pregnancy. Typically, morning sickness involves feelings of nausea and even vomiting and headaches during the first trimester (12 weeks) of pregnancy; however, for some women the sickness may last longer. For other women, morning sickness doesn’t happen at all. About 30 percent of the women who do experience nausea and headaches also experience vomiting. Like other pregnancy symptoms, not all women are going to experience every pregnancy symptom. It often depends on the woman, any preexisting conditions and other factors like the gender of the baby. There are a couple of factors that can contribute to women being more prone to morning sickness, according to several morning sickness statistics and other reports.

CAUSES OF MORNING SICKNESS: Some studies show that you are more likely to have morning sickness during pregnancy if you have a history of migraines or if you have had nausea and vomiting in a prior pregnancy. If you have a medical history of negative side effects of nausea and vomiting from birth control pills, you also might be more prone to morning sickness since some women experience the nausea in response to higher estrogen levels. If you are someone who has motion sickness, you might be more inclined to have morning sickness during pregnancy. If your mother or sisters had morning sickness, there is a chance you might have it too based on some studies that show morning sickness has a genetic predisposition. Other studies have found that you are 50 percent more likely to have morning sickness with severe nausea and vomiting if you are pregnant with a girl. If you have twins or other multiples, you have a higher chance of experiencing nausea and vomiting during pregnancy since some of the pregnancy symptoms during this kind of a pregnancy are multiplied due to being pregnant with more than one baby. However, despite these statistics, there are no guarantees or proof that you will or won’t have it.

NEW RESEARCH: A new study revealed that morning sickness protects the fetus against toxins and disease-causing organisms in foods and beverages. Stefanie N. Hinkle, scientist at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Maryland, says, “Our study evaluates symptoms from the earliest weeks of pregnancy, immediately after conception, and confirms that there is a protective association between nausea and vomiting and a lower risk of pregnancy loss.” The team analyzed a total of 797 women who had tested positive for pregnancy, with 188 ending in miscarriage. By the eighth week of pregnancy, 57.3 percent of the women reported experiencing nausea and 26.6 percent reported nausea with vomiting. The researchers found that women experiencing morning sickness were 50 to 75 percent less likely to have pregnancy loss, compared to those who had not experienced it.

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